From This Day Forward (16 page)

He needed her, damn it! Why couldn't he see what he was doing?

In the corner of her eye, she watched Ines mount the stairs and walk slowly across the balcony toward her.

"It is the mail boat," Ines said.

"I know." Caroline wiped away the tears with the back of her hand.

"I will miss you,
Senhora
."

Caroline's composure nearly broke. She managed to keep the tears at bay, though her voice trembled when she spoke. "And I'll miss you, Ines."

Taking a deep breath, Caroline gathered her dignity around her like a cloak. In a moment, Ines would embrace her, and if she did so, that would be the end of her self-control.

"Come, help me finish packing," Caroline said stiffly, turning away from the door.

Chapter Eight

"
What's wrong with it?"
Jason called over the unusually loud clamor of the boat's engine. He caught the end of a rope and secured it to the short post set in the pier.

"Don't know yet!" the short, burly man in the boat shouted back.

Jason turned as if he sensed her presence behind him, frowning at what she was certain must be a bewildered expression. His gaze dropped to her bandaged feet, and Caroline tugged at her skirt in an attempt to cover them.

"What's the matter with your feet?" Jason shouted to be heard over the racket made by the boat's motor. The captain cut the engine off in the middle of Jason's question, and the word
feet
reverberated up and down the jungle like an explosion.

Caroline blushed as the man in the boat gazed curiously at her half-hidden feet. Opening her parasol
with as much dignity as she could summon, she tilted her chin defiantly. "You needn't concern yourself. They are sore. Ines bandaged them."

Jason scowled. "That's what you get for running around barefoot like a damned aborigine."

Ignoring his caustic comment, Caroline said, "My bags are packed and ready in my room."

"Well, you might as well go back inside," Jason told her bitterly. "There's a problem with the motor."

"How long will it take to repair?" she asked, silently cursing the hopefulness in her breast. She was a fool. How could she want to stay when he didn't want her here?

The man in the boat leaped onto the pier with more agility than she thought him capable of. It was he who answered her question, doffing his tattered brown hat in a gesture of respect. "Don't know yet, ma'am."

"I'll let you know," Jason assured her. "Go back to the house and get out of this sun."

Caroline bristled at his high-handed manner. But the relief that flowed through her outweighed her indignation. Turning back toward the house, all she could think of was that she had been given another reprieve. It might be a short one, she warned her soaring heart, and it would come to an end when the captain repaired the boat, but at least she wasn't leaving just yet.

Caroline slipped through the door into the small shack, careful not to wake the sick boy should he be sleeping. She'd been coming here for three nights now, and each time his condition had improved. He should be dead; he should have died before she even saw him the first time. The fact that he was not only clinging to life but actually improving could only be attributed to a very strong will to survive.

Caroline waited for Ines to follow her in, then closed the door behind them. Turning to face the interior of the room, she gasped aloud at what met her gaze. The boy sat up in bed, staring at her with a broad smile. His mother sat on the bed beside him, her eyes brimming with tears.

Immediately, the mother began babbling happily in Portuguese. She stood to make room for Caroline, who sat on the bed and took the boy's face in both of her hands.

"She say thank you,
Senhora
.
You save her son's life and she say you have great magic."

"No," Caroline said sharply. "No magic. Tell her I accept her thanks, but I did no magic. His body healed itself, with God's help."

His skin felt cool to the touch, and his breathing sounded almost completely normal. "Amazing!" she murmured, unable to believe her own eyes and hands.

Examining him, Caroline found that his lungs had cleared almost entirely and his fever was gone, as were the red pustules. She then turned to examining the mother, who had developed a full-blown case of measles.

Caroline reached into her medical bag and withdrew a bottle of quinine. She found a chipped china cup stacked in a corner of the room and poured about an ounce into it.

"Tell her to do exactly as I say," she said to Ines. "She and her son can go home, but she must rest until the rash goes away. This is quinine." She spoke to Ines as she handed the cup to the woman, and Ines translated.

"Mix a pinch," she demonstrated, taking a small amount of the powder between her thumb and index finger, "with this much water. Take it twice a day until the rash clears. Ines, the rest of her people have got to get help."

Ines stopped translating and gazed guiltily at Caroline.

"Why won't you let me help them?" Caroline asked.

"
Senhora
,
what can you do? You will leave in the morning."

Pain clutched at Caroline's chest. She'd almost forgotten. The problem with the mail boat had been repaired and the captain planned to leave at first light. "
You're
right," she said, her shoulders slumping in abject defeat. "Let's go back to the house. You can bring them some food to take back with them."

"Sim,
Senhora
,"
Ines agreed, and they turned to go.

When they reached the house, they saw Jason at the edge of the courtyard, surrounded by a stand of fan palms, their fronds rustling in a gentle, cooling breeze. His bewildered, forlorn expression tugged at Caroline's heart. He reminded her of a lost little boy, standing there beneath a distant moon, gazing at the house he'd built with his own hands as if he'd never seen it before.

"What will we do?" Ines whispered.

"You go around the house to the kitchen," Caroline said, pressing her medical bag into Ines's hands. "I'll distract him."

Ines gazed at her dubiously, as if she didn't particularly like that plan, but she did as she was told, and Caroline studied Jason again.

He seemed so vulnerable, standing there in the moonlight, so fragile, despite his physical size and strength. She remembered his powerful grace, his masculine beauty as he'd showered at the
beneficio.
That powerful body housed a brittle soul. How she longed to reach that soul, to mend his bruised heart.

He wouldn't allow himself to suffer, to grieve the losses he'd experienced in his lifetime. Yet he suffered for his people. He'd suffered for Ernesto's parents and for Vincente who had been injured because of his own carelessness. What a terrible weight of responsibility he bore!

What was he thinking? If she could understand that one mystery, perhaps she could find a place in his heart and his life. But she couldn't read his eyes in the darkness, and she knew that if she approached him now, his melancholy would instantly give way to anger.

Ines had been right about one thing—Jason Sinclair was the most private, withdrawn man she had ever encountered. The more she tried to break through his reserve, the more he withdrew. She could hardly blame him, after the way he'd described his early life. A child needed emotional nourishment in order to grow, and Jason's emotional growth had been stifled, his spirit all but extinguished by a life of poverty and cruelty. The only way he'd been able to survive was by burying his feelings so deeply that no one, least of all his brutal father, could dig them out.

"Who's there?"

His voice startled her so that her heart leaped into her throat. She'd tried to be still and quiet, but something had alerted him to her presence. It was as if he possessed some special affinity for the jungle, a kinship that had allowed him to distinguish her minute noise from the usual nighttime sounds.

"Show yourself," he demanded, the threat in his voice undeniable.

Caroline stepped forward into the dim moonlight, and the tension in Jason's body evaporated before her eyes like steam from the jungle after a heavy rain.

"Damn it, woman," he growled, his voice thick with a violence that hadn't yet faded. "What do you mean sneaking up on a man like that?"

"I—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"What are you doing out and about this time of night anyway?" he asked, his gaze sweeping her from head to foot. "Haven't you been to bed at all?"

"I couldn't sleep," she explained, gaining control of her voice and her emotions. "I saw you standing there
             
.
What were you looking at?"

Jason snorted, running a hand through his hair as he returned his attention to the house before them. "My home," he said bitterly, "at least what used to be my home."

Caroline followed his gaze to the stone-and-mortar structure before them. "It's the same as it always was."

"No, it's not the same at all."

Caroline turned to find him staring at her. The unmasked pain in his eyes tightened her throat. She clasped her hands in front of her before she gave in to the impulse to reach out to him. His soul ached as much as hers did. If only she could force him to admit that he was lonely here, that he needed her.

"Well," she said, trying to sound light when her heart was being torn apart, "I've always thought it seemed more like a house than a home, actually more a building than a house."

A calm tension pulsed through the encroaching jungle. Even the night sounds seemed subdued tonight, save the insects that chirped incessantly high in the giant trees. In the distance an owl hooted a solitary song.

"Where have you been?" Jason asked, genuine curiosity and concern reflected in his ice blue eyes.

"Walking," she said, turning back toward the house.

It was a long time before he spoke, and Caroline might have thought he'd walked away. But she felt his presence as surely as the soft night air on her cheek. His strong, rhythmic breathing reached out to her, as did his scent, a unique blend of the rich, fertile soil of Brazil and a musky maleness that clung to him like moss on the cypress trees back home.

"Walking?" he asked finally, his voice coarse as gravel. "In the jungle in the middle of the night? No wonder your feet are sore."

Caroline shrugged, trying to appear casual. "I didn't go far, just to the edge of the courtyard."

He shook his head in disbelief. "You are an enigma, Caroline."

"Me?" she asked, suddenly, inexplicably close to tears. If only he truly cared about her, at least then they would have a starting point. "No, I'm the most straightforward, uncomplicated person I know. You, on the other hand—"

"What about me?"

She felt him tense across the distance that separated them. "You're the enigma. I'd daresay you know volumes more about me than I do about you."

"What do you want to know?" he asked defensive as always.

Caroline took a deep breath. What did she have to lose, after all? Why not go out fighting? "Why is it so important to you that your wife be untouched? I've never been promiscuous."

"I never accused you of anything," he insisted, refusing to look at her.

"Except being married before, as if that were a crime or a sin." Caroline stared fixedly at him, willing him to turn and face her. Before she boarded the boat that would take her away from him forever, she was determined to confront him. Maybe forthright honesty would move him, and if not, she was leaving anyway.

"You don't understand," he said, looking into her eyes as if unable to resist the force of her gaze upon him.